The Disappearance of Phoenix Coldon: It Was Never What It Looked Like

hello everybody welcome back to my channel and thank you for joining me for another video today we're talking about a really crazy crazy case that has so many twists and turns it was hard for me to keep track we're talking about the case of a missing woman named Phoenix Holden before you get started I would like to have a word from our sponsor and our sponsor for this video today is Honda killer which is exactly what I want to do to all killers just hunt them down hunt a killer is an immersive murder mystery game told over the course of six episodes or boxes each box is filled with different clues and physical items such as autopsy reports witness statements and more you'll use these clues to solve the ongoing murder mystery in the final episode you'll be able to catch the killer hunt a killer is so much fun if you like solving puzzles and you like true crime Hunter Killer is perfect for you it allows you to use critical thinking think outside the box take in all the evidence all the clues all the facts and put everything together at the end but you don't have to worry about it being somebody who actually died or was murdered or was the victim of a violent crime I enjoy playing Hunter Killer by myself I like it a lot it de-stresses me brings me down lets me kind of focus on other things and calm the noise in my mind but I really love playing with other people too I love playing with my husband and my daughter NAV who's 18 and in college but she's back for the summer so we've really been really working hard on these new boxes just to give you an idea of what the box looks like when it comes it looks like this which i think is so cool inside you'll find a little card that tells you you know what you should find in the box for this episode and you'll find little pieces of evidence like this and I don't want to give away too much but there's like a code on the back oh I said too much there will also be little items that come in police evidence bags and I had to take everything off my murder board and put it back in this envelope so I can show you guys so I hope you're happy I hope I know how to put it back Hunter Killer is so worth it it's really not easy it's very challenging it will take you hours and I think it's much more worthwhile to do this which is like kind of sharpening your brain than just sitting and watching Netflix for hours but both are great I like to do both if you're interested in trying Hunter Killer out there's a code in the description box click on it check it out let me know what you think and the last question I have is do you have what it takes to hunt I'll kill her let's get started on the video phoenix Colden was a 23 year old woman who was last seen on december 18th 2011 by her parents pulling out of the driveway of her home in Spanish Lake Missouri driving her 1998 black Chevy Blazer it was around 3 p.m. that they last saw her a few hours later her vehicle was found abandoned in East st. Louis on the corner of st. Clair and 9th about a 30-minute drive from her home she was never seen by anyone again so after Phoenix vanished the circumstances of her disappearance were reported in a certain way for almost 7 years it was said that her vehicle was found on the side of the road keys in the ignition engine running driver's side door left wide open inside it was said that they found a pair of her shoes sunglasses and Phoenix's purse with her driver's license and bank cards so remember this is how it was reported you can obviously see why there would be no doubt really in anyone's mind that Phoenix was the victim of foul play especially considering the location that her vehicle was found in Phoenix and her parents goal dia and Lawrence lived in Spanish Lake which is a middle-class suburb in Northeast st. Louis County Phoenix had been born in California but the family moved to Missouri for her dad Lawrence's job as a computer systems engineer they were a very conservative religious family I got the definite impression that Phoenix's parents especially her mother Goldia were very strict and they might have had an interest in seeing their daughter Phoenix protected from the darkness in the world Phoenix had been homeschooled since the 5th grade and there were very high academic standards that she was expected to meet and did in fact meet she was an overachiever in every way she played the piano and the violin in the guitar she was in the bell choir at her church little golden trophies lined the shelves in her room and these are awards that she'd gotten for winning fencing championship she was a junior fencing champion but the area her vehicle was found in East st. Louis was not a place that anyone who knew Phoenix thought she would willingly go it's a high crime area full of drugs and abandoned buildings in 2019 a security org conducted a study to determine the most dangerous cities in America and East st. Louis took the number one spot with the most violent crimes per capita the National homicide rate on average is 5 out of every 100,000 but in East st. Louis it is 96 murders per every 100,000 people it just wasn't a place that Phoenix would ever go she was home-schooled very sheltered and not a girl that you would call street smart looking at the pictures of Phoenix I feel that you can tell she had a beautiful soul and it shines through her eyes and her big smile her parents and those who knew her described her as brilliant driven friendly someone who would go out of their way to be nice to everyone and a girl who really knew her faith what she wanted and who she was these were the circumstances of her going missing this was who we had been told she was for years but then oxygen did a two-part special into Phoenix's case and they uncovered a drastically different story one that was much more layered and complex now I want to talk about Phoenix's parents for a moment focusing on her mother goal dia during the oxygen special we were able to get some insight into what kind of person Phoenix's parents expected her to be and what life might have been like for Phoenix living in her parents home there's no doubt that she was very very loved by her parents she was truly the center of their universe the center of their lives as it should be but her mother is old-school you know very much a no-nonsense kind of person someone who reminded me a lot of my own father goal dia talked a little bit about how she expected her daughter to behave never cross your legs one over the other because that shows too much skin don't be too loud smile don't use bad language etc she also said something about the sorts of people she expected her daughter to affiliate with Goldie atoll Phoenix to be nice to everyone but to also not just let anyone into her inner circle she told Phoenix you know seek out friends who are at your level or above this is very similar to what my father told me when I was in high school and growing up it sounds kind of harsh but this is what parents want for their children to be around people who will make them better not bring them down or lead them down the wrong path and goal Diaz mother really did not want Phoenix getting wrapped up in the wrong crowd she even thought the girl living next door to them Akira who became close friends best friends with Phoenix when she was 17 she thought this girl was a bad influence on Phoenix in the special goal dia said quote Phoenix was reaching out to people who looked like her whose skin color was the same as hers rather than looking into a person's heart and looking into their motives I believe that's what got my baby into trouble end quote let's go over the timeline of the day Phoenix went missing it was a Sunday December 18th it was unusually warm for the month and Phoenix and her mother Goldia went to their church as they did every Sunday now according to Goldy a Phoenix did not sit right beside her at church she said a few pews back and this had become sort of like the norm for the two of them when they went to church Goldie has said that they used to sit right next to each other every Sunday but each week Phoenix began inching away further and further until they weren't even in the same pew after church Phoenix and her mother went to the grocery store and they arrived back home at about 2:00 p.m. according to her parents Phoenix played basketball outside for a little bit and was then seen sitting in her car which was not unusual because Phoenix would often sit in her car and make phone calls to have some privacy Lawrence was the last person to see his daughter he said that she was wearing a black or a dark colored hooded sweatshirt grey sweatpants with the letters USML on the leg and black sneakers he said she walked by him while he sitting in the living room reading she left the house as if she was on a mission she got her car she drove away she didn't tell her parents where she was going she didn't say a word to Lawrence or ghoulia and this was at about 3 p.m. she backed out a driveway and we never saw her again her parents say she's the type of young woman to always call to let them know where she is her parents thought she was just stopping at the nearby convenience store but she didn't come home and at midnight Lawrence told his wife that something was wrong because it was very much out of character for their daughter to just leave and be gone for hours without touching base with them in fact Lawrence and Goldia said that Phoenix had never stayed out all night the next day a police officer came over to talk to the cold ins and get details on their daughter but when he found out Phoenix was 23 he allegedly told Olvia and Lawrence that she was an adult and she didn't have to tell her parents where she was going or what she was doing to which gol-do replied I don't know what wolves raised you but that's not how we do things around here and this is what I mean about Goldie abhi a no-nonsense type of woman she has her morals she has her beliefs she has a code by which she lives by she's not afraid to sound judgmental if it means making sure the police are aware that this was out of character for her child and something wasn't right and an officer came out I gave him gave him all the information and he asked for her birthday May 23rd 1980 88 that's her birthday he stopped writing 1988 he didn't I could tell he was doing some mental calculations it was hurting him really bad so I told the officer I think you need to make a report my daughter something's wrong she hasn't called home so he went out to his car in here and I listened carefully now he ran her place nothing showed up so he said he was going to make a report well I had a feeling that he would leave so I call neighbors and I talked to someone there and she told me what to do she says this mrs. Colden what I want you to do is call back and ask for another officer and if you don't want another officer asked for a sergeant to come out so the next day another officer now we're at December 20th now another officer came out she apologized for the previous officer and I told her you don't need to apologize when you have done nothing he's the one who needs to apologize and I doubt that I will ever get an apology for him because he is a student yeah okay so she made the report goal dia insisted that a missing-persons report be filed and the police officer went out to his car to run the place on Phoenix's blazer which was registered in her parents name according to him nothing popped up in the system the Colton's have spent the next two weeks calling hospitals putting up flyers with their daughter's name and picture on them it wasn't until January 1st that they were notified Phoenix's car was in the East st. Louis impound according to officer Benjamin granda who is a media relations officer for the st. Louis County Police Department he claimed the Blazer most likely fell through the cracks because Phoenix was reported missing in Missouri but her car was found in Illinois a different state so it took a while for the two systems to talk to each other and this is obviously an issue because if there was some kind of crime committed that car set an impound for two weeks before the police were able to get it to their station and check it for forensic evidence and as we know the first 48 hours are the most crucial okay so we have a young missing girl whose vehicle is found in a bad part of town in a condition that makes it look very suspicious however during the oxygen special retired deputy police chief Jo Delia an investigative reporter Chandra Thomas talked to the police officer who was the first person on the scene when Phoenix's blazer was found to verify the details of the discovery and they were told a very different story a very different story from the car was just left there engine running with all her stuff in it in the door wide open the call came into dispatch at 5:27 p.m. and officer Kendall Perry was first on the scene he said as he approached the car he thought it had just run out of gas and then nothing really stood out to him as suspicious or wrong about the scene besides the fact that the vehicle was just stopped on the side of the road according to Officer Perry the door was not left open the engine wasn't on and no car keys or purse were found in the car it is so frustrating that Phoenix's car was found within three hours of her leaving her house but her parents didn't know about it for two weeks officer Perry did say that if the vehicle had been reported missing it would have pinged in the system so I guess it is a good thing to remember if a loved one goes missing report the car that they were driving as stolen so you have better luck of the police putting the pieces together even from different jurisdictions officer Perry said that when they they impounded the car they were able to you know run the license plate and see who owned it and everything but it didn't pop up as being connected to a missing person because remember they weren't able to even file a missing persons report on Phoenix until the next day and her car was found within three hours of her leaving the house so what he found it and he ran it through the system didn't come up as anything she had just pretty much left her house and the next day when the police officer allegedly went to his car and ran the place and said nothing came up is very possible that her car wouldn't have come up as you know impounded in East st. Louis because technically where they lived in Spanish Lake was a different state than you st. Louis even though it's only 30 minutes away after this day this day the Phoenix goes missing all activity on her social media accounts she didn't access her bank account or use her cell phone now the reason that the cold ins reached out to investigative reporter shondrea and retired police officer Joe to look into their daughter's case was because they felt that the police had not put everything they had into finding Phoenix because she was black they have brushed us all I call it brushing sweeping us away maybe they use five brooms to sweep us away they call the reasons why they cannot get involved I call them an easy goal Diaz said quote if Phoenix had looked like Natalie Holloway we would not be having this problem end quote so pretty much the cold ins wanted to bring some fresh eyes to the evidence hoping that they could uncover more than the police did but when the cold ins were confronted by Joe and shondrea with the differences in the story that they'd been telling and what they had heard from officer Perry goal dia and Lawrence couldn't recall exactly where they'd gotten that information from they said they believed maybe someone had told them or maybe they had read it but they wanted Joe and shondrea to understand and know it certainly had not come from them so basically they hadn't just made it up what Joe and shondrea would go on to uncover however were a lot of Secrets a lot of secrets and secrets that painted Phoenix in a very different light than we were hearing from her pastor and her fencing coach and her parents often with teenagers and even you know going into early 20s sometimes depending on the person it's going to be their friends their peers then know the most about them and they're gonna know more about their secret life the things that they might hide from the adults in their life especially if you're somebody like Phoenix and your parents expect a lot from you and there's high standards there's high standards at fencing with your coach there's high standards when you're at church every Sunday with your pastor you have thus far portrayed yourself in a certain way and a teenager or a young adult will do whatever it takes to continue showing themselves in that light the first thing uncovered comes from a friend of Phoenix's a man named Tim a baker now he said that he and Phoenix met in 2001 when they were in fifth grade they lived in the same neighborhood but where Phoenix was home-schooled so they'd only see each other after Tim got off the bus in the afternoon Tim said that when he was in high school he came out and after that he and Phoenix became closer because he didn't really have a lot of friends and he was feeling kind of lonely and he said the Phoenix was his backbone and he was so appreciative to know that there was someone who loved and accepted him for who he was and she did Tim also said he last saw Phoenix over Thanksgiving break less than a month before she went missing he told a Joe in chandraiah that Phoenix had told him she was going to UMSL but it wasn't until after she went missing that it was uncovered she hadn't been attending college at all that past semester to the surprise of her parents and everyone who knew her Tim also said that Phoenix had two cellphones one that was on her parents plan that they knew about and a secret phone that they didn't know about he believed it was because she didn't want them to know about a boyfriend Michael that she'd been secretly dating and even living with in an apartment when she was supposed to be going to school her parents were very strict very religious and they never would have approved of Phoenix dating seriously or living with someone before marriage according to Tim Phoenix explicitly asked him to keep the second cell phone and the boyfriend a secret from her parents because she felt if they found out they would put a stop to it and not allow her to date this guy who we don't know his real name but we're gonna call him Michael be so Phoenix has a cellphone on her parents plan that they pay for and that they know about and they get the bill and the bills gonna list all the calls and like who those calls are connected to when they happen how long they last etc so Phoenix also has this second phone that her parents don't know about and allegedly this phone is so she can communicate with a boyfriend that her parents don't know about in fact there was a t-mobile bill found in Phoenix's car and it was connected to an account and a number that her parents had no knowledge of Joe and Chandra were not able to get the information for the secret cellphone but they were able to look through the call logs of the phone on her parents plan and there they found that she actually had used that phone to communicate with her secret boyfriend who like I said we only know as Michael B turned out that Phoenix had been communicating with Michael be a lot in the month before she went missing and she even had a phone conversation with him the day before she went missing that lasted 116 minutes now when gol dia and Lawrence were questioned about Michael B they said that yes they they'd known about him Phoenix had tried to keep him a secret but she didn't keep him bad great of a secret even though she really wanted to but they weren't sure if he had been living with Phoenix if Michael B and Phoenix were living together in this apartment Phoenix went to great lengths to hide that fact as any good nosy mother would do gol dia had gone to the apartment that Phoenix claimed she shared with a female roommate that no one had ever met golde ahead looked around she opened closets etcetera the medicine cabinet and she claimed to see no sign that a man was living there now when gol dia and Lawrence questioned Michael B about the conversation he and their daughter had had the day before she went missing he claimed he couldn't remember what they talked about which Lawrence Phoenix's father thought was very suspicious saying quote to me he was a shady person I would describe his actions as someone who was hiding something in my opinion he's a liar end quote okay so Phoenix had gone off to college in 2006 and at one point she began living in an off-campus apartment that her parents were paying for in May of 2011 her parents told Phoenix it was time to move back home she was going to school not too far from their house and they couldn't afford to pay the rent on this apartment and their mortgage any longer this was six months before she went missing so you have a girl who's been very sheltered homeschooled she goes off to college and suddenly she's independent and living at her own for four years but then her parents put a stop to it they're like enough it's time to come home and she really doesn't have a choice because they're paying for this apartment now the day that Phoenix went missing her call records show that she spoke to a woman named Rosie and that's a friend of Goldie's and she spoke to Rosie in the morning at about 9:30 for this call s at only 2 minutes and 941 Phoenix talked to Michael B for 6 minutes and then again at 1:40 6 p.m. call that lasted only one minute and this was the last call to be made or received by that phone it's worth noting that call could have very likely been less than a minute but if you talk to someone on the phone for like 24 seconds the phone company will bill you for an entire minute that's just how how it works and it won't show if it was only 24 seconds so it technically could have been an even quicker call than one minute and there was no incoming calls from Mykleby on that phone after 1:46 which is weird because you'd think if your girlfriend goes missing you would at least try to call her phone and see if she picked up and this all seems very suspicious to Phoenix's parents Goldie and Laurence Colton and honestly it seems suspicious to us if were being honest however according to the media relations officer the police had talked to Michael B while investigating Phoenix's disappearance and found him to be the most cooperative most upfront individual that we talked to in the investigation and they 100% have ruled him out as a suspect and do not believe that he was involved in her disappearance it was also revealed that the police knew Phoenix had two cell phones and although they never recovered either of these phones they were able to get a warrant for the records on her secret phone now Jody Leah who remember he's a retired police officer he was a pretty big deal back in the day during his heyday he asked officer Grandda the media relations guy at the st. Louis Police Department he asked had there been any calls made on the secret phone after 146 p.m. and he was told that the police are keeping that information close to the vest at this point but they did use the GPS on both phones to track Phoenix's movements that day and they have not ruled out abduction human trafficking or even homicide so police have ruled Phoenix's secret boyfriend Michael B out as a suspect but they won't really tell us why they don't believe he's a suspect or what kind of phone calls were made on Phoenix's secret phone which is incredibly frustrating but they claim to have left no stone unturned Michael B was essentially Phoenix's secret boyfriend for roughly four they were suspected of living together at one point she stopped going to college the semester before she went missing but she didn't tell her parents that she was no longer going to college and in the spring she moved back home after living on her own for four years according to some of Phoenix's friends this was when the arguments and disagreements started with her parents akira hogan the girl who lived next door to the cold ins and who had been best friends with phoenix claimed that after phoenix came to live back at home she changed they'd known each other since they were 17 but phoenix was home-schooled so she didn't really have that much social interaction with other kids her age and she didn't really like being homeschooled either goal dia was not a fan of Phoenix hanging out with a Kira feeling that she was a bad influence and Phoenix should be focusing on her academics or practicing one of her instruments or you know fencing she didn't really want Phoenix hanging around at neighbors houses in the six months leading up to her disappearance at Phoenix had become more irritated she seemed down and depressed a lot more than she usually did she was also incredibly paranoid at this point she's 23 years old you know she's been at college for four years so even the goal dia didn't necessarily approve of akhira Phoenix and akhira would still hang out and according to a Keira goal dia told them that someone was watching them while they were at the park and this was very stressful to the girls to think that somebody would be watching them while they were at the park and Akira doesn't even know if if gol deal was being serious about this or he was just trying to kind of scare them but Phoenix seemed to become incredibly paranoid and she told Acura that someone was following her someone was after her and was coming to get her akira would obviously get frustrated and she'd ask phoenix who was after her why do you think someone's coming to get you what's going on what are you talking about who are you talking about but Phoenix never told Akira she only said she felt that something bad was going to happen to her and she just kept repeating something's after me someone's after me someone's gonna get me Phoenix also got paranoid to the point where she accused Akira of talking about her behind her back in Akira said she never do that to her best friend about a week before Phoenix vanished she and Akira had an argument about Michael be the secret boyfriend and according to Akira Phoenix pulled out a knife what Acura called a sword knife that she sometimes kept in her car in the passenger side door now Acura didn't know if Phoenix was threatening her with the knife because they were arguing or if she was just showing her that she had it for protection kind of like don't mess with me but to even just pull a knife all like that was very very much out of character for Phoenix and after she did this she told Akira that she was leaving she was just gonna leave she said she was gonna go pack up her stuff and leave and Akira said she didn't recognize this Phoenix scared paranoid desperate Phoenix just kept saying I gotta go I gotta go and this was the last time Akira adverse a Phoenix but Phoenix's friend Akira would have some more information for Joe and shondrea after they discovered a video that Phoenix had taken of herself on November 15th 2011 a month before she went missing this video is referred to as the selfie video it shows a young woman in crisis struggling with emotions and feelings that she couldn't understand or couldn't deal with they played bits and pieces of this video on the oxygen special but I can't find the whole video anywhere I can't even find a transcript for it and I doubt oxygen will be cool with me using clips from it however if I do find clips from it I'll enter them in the description box you can click and watch yourself you can also go on the oxygen app if you have cable and oxygen is a channel that's involved or included in your cable membership you can go on the oxygen app and you can watch it so I'll link that as well but I can tell you some of the things she said during this video where she's clearly venting and almost trying to work through things out loud so she says I got ditched this is ridiculous I just want to start over I just feel like I can't start the new me over people don't give an F I don't know I gotta start seeing things for what they are instead of you know thinking about it like that see things for what they are she also does a version of the serenity prayer she says lord please help me accept the things that won't change and that I won't change the things that I can't change she goes on to also say that's why I don't like talking to people when I'm mad or whatever because I say that I don't mean and that's when you learn to hold your composure she also says I want people to take me seriously and then she said something that really struck a chord in me really hurt me for her I felt myself hurting for her she said I just want to be happy man I feel so stupid because I let myself go a little bit I probably would have been in a better situation if I would have stuck with how I used to be the only person that won't let me down is me so from these words and the way she looked I got the impression she had at some point taken the wrong path done something that maybe the old Phoenix would never have done the old Phoenix who goes to church every Sunday who plays in the bell choir at church who practiced her piano every Saturday morning who focused on her studies in her grades she was maybe feeling that she had lost her true self and she didn't know how to get back mainly what is the most relevant for us about what she said because everything's relevant but we don't know exactly what her feelings or her motives are behind those words but what's important to us in solving her disappearance or looking for her are the words I want to start over which sounds a lot like what she told her friend Akira that she just wanted to leave she said she felt she couldn't talk to anybody about what she was going through because they wouldn't understand and at that time in her life you can clearly tell she felt very alone I mean she said the only person who won't let me down is me and that's a very sad place to be that is the feeling you have when everybody you know or you thought you knew lets you down when you see that people aren't perfect and they're flawed and they will disappoint you now when Phoenix's friend and neighbor Akira was shown this video she said she'd never seen Phoenix like that before and she didn't even know a Phoenix to record herself talking to the camera this way akira also revealed that michael b was not the only person Phoenix had been seeing at that time there was another guy who were just gonna call cellphone Mike because he worked at a cellphone store and his name was Mike and he would give Phoenix discounts and things at the cell phone store he's the one who most likely set her up with that second phone and Akira believes he was the reason Phoenix had that phone so she could talk to him and not be caught by Michael B or her mother this new Michael cell phone Mike also has a very sketchy background Joe and shondrea interviewed an ex-girlfriend of his who wanted to remain anonymous show they show this this woman on the episode but just from the back so you kind of just see her her hair and like her hands moving as she talks so you never see her face and you don't know her name but she claimed that she'd met cellphone Mike in mid-2010 while they were working together before too long he became jealous and controlling and eventually this escalated into emotional and physical abuse resulting in this woman eventually taking a restraining order out on him they lived together at the same time that cellphone Mike and Phoenix had begun getting close and before this anonymous woman ended up leaving cellphone Mike she remembered him on his computer a lot because she lived with him and he was doing research on missing persons cases in st. Louis and Chicago but she also realized that he seemed to be very interested in the case of Phoenix Holden it was December of 2011 around Christmas the same month that Phoenix disappeared and cellphone Mike's girlfriend said she saw him looking up the case again and again and so finally she asked him you know why are you so obsessed with this girl like why do you keep following her case so I first he told her that he was a psych major so he was just looking into these cases because he found them interesting and then he said that he was just checking up to see if the police were getting anywhere with the investigation and eventually he confessed to his girlfriend that Phoenix had been a customer of his and that they had actually slept together and when his girlfriend got upset rightly so cellphone Mike asked her why are you worried about somebody who's dead so that's sketchy let's talk about some possible theories for what could have happened to Phoenix Colden there are three major ones and we'll talk about the evidence and how it supports or doesn't support each theory theory one is that Phoenix was abducted and sold into human trafficking apparently the st. Louis region the area has had a long history of being a hotbed for sex trafficking since 2007 3290 to human trafficking cases were reported in Missouri with a high concentration of those originating out of the st. Louis area Phoenix's car was found near highway 70 which is known to be a major passageway for human traffickers to find their victims and then quickly get them out of the state ASAP according to an article from Fox 10 in November of 2019 there was a huge sting in Independence Missouri which resulted in more than 20 arrests and many claims of drugs and false imprisonment the interstate 70 and Noland Road corridor is a crossroads of this illegal activity one of the men investigated in this sting was 48 year-old Jeffrey Higgins and the federal complaint against him states he was holding a woman and a child against their will in their own home he eventually began to post this woman on escort sites against her will he emptied her bank account and wouldn't let her get a job so that she would feel desperate enough to begin performing sex acts for money when she still didn't comply he began injecting her with methamphetamine and heroin to force her into submission she was only saved when an undercover police officer answered an ad for an escort and showed up to a hotel where this woman drugged and out of it completely agreed to exchange sex acts for money Higgins was in the parking lot with this woman's young child using this child as leverage to ensure that this woman completed her job that he would now financially benefit from and that's what we call a pimp a former victim of human trafficking was interviewed on the oxygen special about Phoenix and she told Jo in shondrea the many different ways a young girl can be lured into this kind of situation this woman this victim claimed that pimps usually work very quickly sometimes they just grab you off the street or out of your car or you know they act like they need help so you'll pull over and stop your car and they'll come to your window and then lure you out of the car before grabbing you and tossing you into the back of your own car or into the back of their car and then someone they're working with will jump in your vehicle and dump it somewhere sometimes it's a little more indirect maybe they have someone less intimidating working with them like another woman those were the circumstances in in this woman's situation this victim of human trafficking it was another woman who introduced her to a man that she claimed was her boyfriend and boss they said they worked in the music industry in LA and they convinced her to come with them so she could work in the music industry as well but when they got to LA it was a very different story this man put her to work in a club parading her around for men and the first night this happened all of her belongings were mysteriously stolen including her cell phone money identification anything that connected her to anyone else or to her past was gone and this is the way that they isolate you from those who care about you they offer you a great opportunity one that you would feel almost stupid to turn down they bring you to a different state or even a different country they remove your connection to the outside world they take your money so you're dependent on them so you're desperate but according to this this victim of human trafficking the way a pimp recruits is honestly most dependent on the girl they need to figure out what is important to their target what does this girl want or need but they don't have where are their weaknesses and pressure points is there turmoil in the family they'll find whatever it is the pressure points the weak points the Achilles heels and they'll prey on that to start driving a wedge between their victim and those in her life who love her a pimp can also pose as a boyfriend someone who comes into your life innocently enough someone who pretends to love you maybe dating you for several months and while they're playing this part they'll figure out what it'll take to convince you to do something you normally wouldn't do they might say you know they got robbed or something and with our paycheck and they're not gonna get paid for another month and they need money to pay the rent or to pay the bills and they suggest that you do something for money in order to save them but don't worry it's only gonna be this one time and it's for a good cause you know you never have to do this again once we're out of this hole and because the girl thinks that this is a man she loves or a man who loves her the girl completes this act to help the person that she loves and then this man will use it against her he'll tell her that her family will never accept her now that everyone will be ashamed of her he might even threaten to use pictures or video evidence to show the people she knows and loves in order to blackmail her into continuing and it does seem that Phoenix might have felt trapped in her life she was sheltered her parents really wanted to make sure she had a good and happy life with no interference from outside influences but in doing so they didn't really teach her how to handle herself in the real world with people who might mean to do her harm Phoenix was home-schooled she was kept busy with music lessons and fencing she was kept away from a lot of her peers she was told a lady does this and a lady doesn't do this there's a lot of pressure to meet the high expectations of her parents but then she went to college for four years she lived on her own for four years she would have experienced a level of freedom and independence she had most likely never known before and she probably would have liked it but when her parents insisted that she moved back home the may before she disappeared and they told her they weren't gonna pay for her apartment anymore she might have felt controlled manipulated if she had her own money she could make her own way and not be at the whim of her parents and what they wanted she wouldn't have to live the life that they thought she should but she didn't have her own money as far as I know Phoenix never even had a job and whatever was paid for her to go to college or to live on her own that was coming from her parents Goldia and Lawrence now Steve Foster was a private investigator that the cold ins hired in January of 2012 to find their daughter and he gave some insight into what Phoenix was up to before she went missing she had gotten into the safe that her parents had in her house and she'd stolen $2,500 worth of savings bonds that were in both her and her mother's name could she have been taking this money for a boyfriend or a friend someone who said they needed it so she could avoid doing the things they suggested that she do to get the money was she trying to get out of doing those things so she stole from her parents but in the end it turned out for this person it wasn't enough and it never would be and they still wanted her to sell herself so some other emergency would have come up some other urgent need for money a woman like Phoenix who was kind to people who was brought up to be a lady she wouldn't necessarily have the street smarts to know when someone was trying to take advantage of her until it was too late and I think that this is what she could have meant this is what she could been referring to in that video she took of herself on November 15th she said she felt stupid that she'd let herself go a little bit she said she feels like she would have been better off if she just stayed the person she was the innocent and naive young girl who crosses her legs at the ankles and practices her violin and waits until marriage she could have felt a disconnect from that person and who she was becoming and if she did get herself into a bad situation it would have been easy for someone to manipulate her knowing how religious and strict her parents were this person could have told Phoenix your mom is never going to forgive you for this your dad will never look at you the same way it could have made her feel so much shame and guilt she just accepted that this was her new life this was the new Phoenix she wouldn't have felt that she could go back to her parents incredibly strict parents incredibly religious and conservative parents sometimes we can say they're judgmental she may not have felt that she could go back to them after what she'd done additionally there was a woman who knew Phoenix from church and swears that she saw Phoenix in March of 2014 on a flight coming back from Las Vegas Kelly frong heart claims that she had boarded a plane and she was already seated when a group of women accompanied by a few men walked onto the plane the women were all black they were all beautiful dressed well with nice jewelry on the men they were with were also dressed nicely and Kelly said they looked as if they could have been a pro football player so I assume that means tall and you know broad and maybe you know dressed nicely in expensive clothing now Kelly claims one of the women in this group looked just like Phoenix Colden who by that time had already been missing for over two years according to Kelly when she saw this woman walking down the aisle by her seat she called out Phoenix's name and the woman turned to look at her she was wearing a short motorcycle jacket zipped up and when she looked at Kelly she said oh do I look like someone and Kelly responded yes you do you look like my friend Phoenix at that point Kelly claims the woman turned away and kept walking and when the plane landed in st. Louis Kelly went to the Southwest counter and told them that she thought she'd seen a missing person on her plane they called in security and the police they searched all over the airport but they didn't find that woman the woman who looked like Phoenix and Kelly claims she was 90 percent sure that this woman was in fact Phoenix and if she called how Phoenix's name and this woman walking by turned towards her that does say something now if if all the women turned and looked towards her I would just think you know that these are women who are looking at you because you're yelling a name at them but if it was just the one woman who looked like Phoenix that that means something theory number two Phoenix left of her own free will now this seems to be the theory that in the end both Joe and shondrea were leaning towards even Steve Foster the PI hired by the cold ins felt the human trafficking theory was possible but unlikely he felt someone like Phoenix was too smart and had too much support in her life from family and friends he believes that she could have been tricked but he also knew that Phoenix and her parents were getting into some heated arguments before she disappeared another friend of Phoenix's also mentioned that there were some fights happening and the Phoenix had actually run away and stayed away for several days before this friend actually claimed that Phoenix had run away in 2009 and it was like a week she was gone and she didn't reach out to her family or make contact with her family or talk to her mom and dad at all now when the cold ins were asked about this goal dia said it an outright lie and that even though they had obviously experienced disagreements with their daughter before as most parents do with their children they would talk it through and resolve it and put it behind them but the fact that she could have just ran away on her own it might explain why she did take in the savings bonds out of the safe and cashed them maybe she was getting money together to make her get away but those savings bonds weren't the only thing she found in the safe Phoenix also came across her birth certificates yes birth certificates there was two of them showing two different names one birth certificate was for Phoenix Colden the other for Phoenix Reeves now Reeves is the maiden name of Phoenix's mother goal dia what exactly happened I'm not sure it's not very clear completely it is pretty clear that goal dia became pregnant with Phoenix before she was married but I can't really find it stated anywhere whether or not Lawrence was Phoenix's biological father or not one website does state that golde I gave birth to Phoenix and then Lawrence adopted Phoenix and then she took his last name but if I'm going to speculate and go out on a limb a little bit I am assuming Phoenix had no idea about any of this I can imagine when she found those birth certificates she would be mad frustrated confused she may have also felt that her parents were being a bit hypocritical when I came to dealing with her pushing the narrative of you know no sex before marriage when her own mother became pregnant with her out of wedlock it may have turned everything she thought she knew upside down it might have made her question who she could trust it might have led to her saying in that video the only person I can depend on is me and she did tell Akira that she wanted to leave and she did say in that video that all she wanted was to start over if Phoenix took that birth certificate with the last name Reeves she very easily could have gotten a driver's license in that name which would explain why no activity was ever found under the name Phoenix Colden no one ever tried to get a new identification or apply for a job or a credit card under the name Phoenix Holden but if she changed her name legally to Phoenix Reeves or even to something else altogether she would be much to find now during the oxygen special they did do a background search on the name Phoenix Reeves and allegedly they found only for living in the United States three of these four names could easily be traced to real existing people they had social media presences they had connected relatives birth dates etc the fourth didn't even exist before January of 2012 just weeks after Phoenix disappeared and this fourth Phoenix Reeves had no family connection no date of birth there was pretty much nothing attached to this person besides an address that they were able to track to Anchorage Alaska which I guess is a good place to run if you don't want anyone to find you if you wanted to start over somewhere and nobody would recognize you far from home Alaska would be the place however when they visited the address associated with the name in Anchorage the woman who lived there claimed she had owned the home since 2002 and she lived there ever since she'd never rented it out to anyone nobody else had ever lived there she didn't recognize the name Phoenix Reeves or recognize a picture of Phoenix herself so it was a dead end now if the story of the way her car had been found abandoned on the side of the road engine on door wide open if that story was true I would be more likely to believe someone had snatched her but whoever created that story most likely just wanted the case to get attention because it wasn't getting the attention it deserved and needed in reality the car was just found parked on the side of the road there was no sign of struggle no blood found in the car nothing out of place the engine wasn't on the door was closed the keys weren't in there so a Phoenix did staged her own disappearance I don't think she did it alone and that's really where I would be interested in someone talking to Michael B again her boyfriend at the time or cellphone Mike the guy she was secretly talking to Michael B is still suspicious to me because it says if he knew what she was doing she talked to him the night before for a very long time and the last call she made on on that phone was to him but it was a minute or under a minute almost as if she called to say I'm leaving I'm heading out or it's time did he come and pick her up after she left her vehicle in East st. Louis did he burn her to a bus station or to the airport is that why her car was found there did she purposely drive it to another state in a bad part of town knowing that it would be harder to put the pieces together for law enforcement it's pretty obvious to me that Mike be having no recollection of an over hour-long conversation with his girlfriend the day before she vanished doesn't make sense and doesn't add up he definitely remembers what what they talked about and it is likely if she was using this other birth certificate she could have gotten identification under that name or she could have just completely changed her name because once you get identification you can pretty much make your name whatever you want apparently you can change it to anything you want so I thought here's an opportunity to be creative so meet princess consuela bananahammock now the cold ins Lawrence and Goldie I do not think that Phoenix would have left on her own and Akira Phoenix's next-door neighbor and best friend she believes that Phoenix might have left on her own but she wouldn't have stayed out of contact with everyone for so long which brings us to our next theory theory number three she left on her own to take some time and to have a break maybe take some time for herself get some space but she encountered foul play even if Phoenix made the decision to leave she was still somewhat naive and she still had lived a very sheltered life it's likely she could have become the victim of a crime after she left it's even possible she enlisted someone to help her disappear and this person took the opportunity to make her really disappear like a man who she knew from home or school take for instance cellphone Mike I'm not seeing cellphone Mike day anything wrong not at all I'm just speculating in in talking about possible leads and I do think it's a lead that should really be pursued why was he researching missing-persons cases in December of 2011 why was he constantly looking into Phoenix's case and why did he tell his girlfriend that Phoenix was dead if he didn't know for sure was he just trying to get his girlfriend off his back was he assuming Phoenix was dead because she was missing or did he know something that we don't because remember this was December of 2011 it was the same month that Phoenix went missing so the longest she could have been missing at that time was a week or two so it's not as if she'd been gone for years and he's like oh why you worried about her she's dead she's she's only gone for at the most two weeks and he's already saying that not saying he did it allegedly just saying that he could have been involved allegedly now a girl like Phoenix who didn't have a lot of survival instincts since she had never had to learn to survive on her own she would have really had a hard time staying off the map for so long in my opinion in which she really be angry enough with her parents to run away but then never contact them again wouldn't you think after a few years had passed as she grew up became self-sufficient maybe Matt someone and started a family of her own wouldn't she have tried to reconnect with her parents I think she would have being a young woman and wanting your freedom and resenting your parents for denying you that freedom is so normal but she loved her parents and they loved her and they tried to give her at the best life they could and she would have come to realize that as years passed and perspective sat in it's not as if they were abusive to her or mistreated her she would eventually have reached out to them to at least let them know she was okay and to stop their torment if Phoenix went off on her own I do not believe that she is alive any longer there's another case of a missing woman from Atlanta that Phoenix's case might be connected to Stacey Nicole English was a 36 year old a black woman who disappeared the day after Christmas just nine days after Phoenix vanished her car was also found abandoned a month later her body was found in a heavily wooded area just one mile away from where her car had been found there was a man who was involved with Stacey at the time they had been dating he'd even been invited to spend Christmas with her and her family his name is Robert Kirk and he is an event promoter from st. Louis it doesn't seem as if Kirk was ever named as an official suspect since Stacey's autopsy revealed she'd most likely died from hypothermia but he was probably the last person who saw her live since they'd spent Christmas Day together at her parents house the night before she disappeared allegedly they got into an argument at her condo that night now this guy this Kirk guy he lived in st. Louis but he was in Atlanta visiting Stacy it also appears that he had another baby mama and a child living in Atlanta and it also appears that he attended the same College as Phoenix Colden and they have some Facebook friends in common so I really wouldn't be a stretch or that much of a stretch to say they knew each other or at least they associated with some of the same people and they would have crossed paths at some point before she disappeared Robert Kirk has since retained a high profile defense attorney and has deleted his social media profiles he's been referred to as a ladies man like I said with you know all sorts of girlfriends all over the place and according to Stacy's father Stacy and Kirk had gotten into an argument at 10 p.m. on December 26th and she kicked him out of her condo I'm not sure how old Robert Kirk is I can't really figure that out so I can't really tell if he attended college at the same time as Phoenix but it's definitely something worth looking into and apparently the FBI are on it Robert Kirk told the police that he and Stacy did in fact have an argument but it was because she was acting peculiar and she accused him of being Satan and he said that when she asked him to leave he did and he checked into a nearby hotel so it's 20/20 Phoenix Colden is still missing she would be over 30 years old by now and her parents are still searching for her as hard as they did since the day she went missing they've put everything every cent they had into finding their daughter they hired private investigators to follow every lead and inevitably they ended up bankrupting themselves they had to give up their family home but something that they did bring with them from their family home was the Christmas tree that had been put up the month Phoenix went missing they set it up at their new house with the same decorations the same lights and the same brightly colored boxes underneath it goal dia said that this Christmas tree will stay up until Phoenix is home to open her presents goal dia and Lawrence fondly look back and remember how every Saturday morning NIC's would wake them up practicing her piano I imagine it's one of those things that was probably annoying to them at the time but now the silence on Saturday mornings is deafening because it means that their little girl is gone at the end of the oxygen special when Joe and chandraiah told the cold ins that they believe Phoenix left on her own the cold ins obviously got a bit defensive as what any parent honestly gold iya claims that Phoenix had been drifting away falling under the influence of some bad people but she believed that things were taking a turn for the better on the way home from church that morning Phoenix had looked at her and told her that she missed the way things used to be when they were closer and she wanted to get back to that goal dia believed Phoenix was returning to her and that if she did leave on her own it was because she was tricked into it her parents wanted her to know that it didn't matter what she did or how long she's been gone or what people think or say they don't care about any of that they just want her back and there's nothing she could ever do to make them stop loving her that's all I have for this video as always let me know what you guys think in the comments follow me on Instagram follow me on Twitter shared this video if you think it's worth sharing and remember I love you also remember to check out the hunter-killer link in the description box if you're interested in trying it out stay kind stay beautiful and I'll see you very soon bye [Applause] [Music] now the battles going down [Music] [Music] TV girls it's it is get a new Sony [Music]

Channel: Stephanie Harlowe

Views: 417,071

Rating: 4.8992605 out of 5

Keywords: stephanie harlowe, mystery, phoenix coldon, goldia coldon, missing person, true crime, stephanie harlow

Id: XrQTypCHrF8

Length: 56min 54sec (3414 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 01 2020